Eliminating T.J. From the HORSE Final Table

It’s always good to knock out a player. You go up in prize money, you gain some chips, you avoid being the shortest stack. When you’re the shortest stack, that’s when you feel like you have to gamble, and you can’t play the same basic game that you would otherwise. The whole nature of the game changes when you’re the short stack.

Look at how T.J. Cloutier played at the final table of the HORSE event until he was the short stack with five of us left. Until he became the short stack, he was being very careful not to move all in, not to put himself in jeopardy, except for that hand when he doubled up against Doyle.

It was amazing how fast T.J. called me when I reraised him all in. He raised under the gun and it was my big blind and it got back to me and I raised him all in. I had two tens and he almost beat me into the pot. If it was anybody but T.J. and if T.J. wasn’t so short-stacked and he beat me in the pot that fast, I would normally think, “Okay, I’m toast; he’s got to have aces or kings,” but I’ve played a lot with T.J. and I know a couple things about how he plays.

First, once he gets short-stacked he’s going to make those kind of all-in calls. He’s going to do that to try to pick up some chips because he knows otherwise that he’s going be the next one out. Also, I play with him a lot and he always thinks that I’m trying to make a lot of moves on him. Actually, I was thinking about it. If I had a K-Q there I might have made a move on him in that situation. But I didn’t. I had two tens and he had two sevens. He beat me in the pot so fast that for half a second I thought maybe I was beat, but I still thought it was going to be a coinflip, fifty-fifty, whether I had the best hand or not. I wasn’t too surprised. I’m just glad he didn’t have A-K.